AHP2 is required for bivalent formation and for segregation of homologous chromosomes in Arabidopsis meiosis

A new Arabidopsis meiotic mutant has been isolated. Homozygous ahp2-1(Arabidopsis homologue pairing 2) plants were sterile because of failure of both male and female gametophyte development. Fluorescent in situ hybridisation showed that in ahp2-1 male meiocytes, chromosomes did not form bivalents during prophase I and instead seemed to associate indiscriminately. Chromosome fragmentation, chromatin bridges and unbalanced segregation were seen in anaphase I and anaphase II. The ahp2-1 mutation was caused by a T-DNA insertion in an Arabidopsis homologue of meu13(+), which has been implicated in homologous chromosome pairing during meiosis in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Our results suggest that meu13(+) function is conserved in higher eukaryotes and support the idea that Arabidopsis, yeast and mouse share a pairing pathway that is not present in Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans.